Intrinsic Thrill
by BW1819
Summary: "I can't swallow, my throat is so thick. My hands are trembling, and I know I need to find Peeta. To apologize? To be comforted? No. Because it's the right thing to do." KxP Following the announcement of the Quarter Quell. Canon divergence from Catching Fire.


Takes place after the announcement of the Quarter Quell.

* * *

"Peeta." I whisper in the snow, watching my breath turn to mist in the cold. My throat is rasping as if I have a sheet of sandpaper on the back of my tongue. It is late into December, and the walk back to the district from the woods is full of clumsy steps and blurred vision in the winter sunset.

Snow is sending us back into the arena.

_The male and female tributes will be reaped from the existing pool of victors._

Snow's organ-like voice echoes in my head. I am guaranteed to take part being the only female tribute of my district, while Peeta and Haymitch will both have an equal chance of being reaped, completely dependent in what slip Effie grabs out of the bowl.

The wind gushes at my face, making my skin feel frozen to the touch for I only have a thin long sleeve shirt on and similar pants and boots. I run faster to the fence, watching my footing for any knots exposed to the forest floor. The fence has no buzz to it and I bend to go through the break in the chain link.

In the victor's village, Peeta's house is a little over 20 yards in front of mine, and Haymitch right next to mine. Peeta's house is dark; all the drapes closed. He must be at the bakery. Hopefully with his family.

_I hope his mother can push away her feelings toward him and console him in the way he needs._

My house has the lights on in the kitchen; Prim is probably cooking something for my mother, trying to comprehend what was announced by the president. My mother will be in the same spot as when I left, waiting for Prim to bring her food. I truly feel sorrow for my mother, as she delves deeper into her most recent revelation of depression. Her daughter will die in the next games.

It's not that I won't try; I just know that for Peeta to survive, I have to make that sacrifice. I will not be a martyr.

Haymitch is a specialist in the subject of Quarter Quells, he won the 50th. I step in a puddle while walking up the steps leading to his front door and grit my teeth, pulling my lip between. His house smells of rotting meat and vomit before I open the door.

I hear the familiar noise that I associate with Haymitch. The clinking of liquor bottles. He sits in cushioned chair, his feet on an ottoman covered in cracked leather. He is reading a government official book, something with the judicial regulations of the games.

His home is homey in the way that if I were to fall drunk somewhere in his house, I would wake in some sort of comfortable way. A big rug the size of my house in the Seam lays over the wood floor, its ends frazzled. He had many chairs all around the room, covered in feathered down. Beside the slightly lingering smell of natural stench, it's a home.

"Oh, wow." He says with an excitement that shows he is already drunk. "There she is. Finally did the math, huh?" He uses his wrist to swirl the half empty bottle in his hand. "And you are here to what- ask me to die?"

I bite my lip because once he's said it; I realize that is what I am asking. For Peeta to live, it means Haymitch's death. He may be gruff and hard to deal with but he is family now. Both ways, at least one of District 12 victors are going to be dead by the end of next summer. Peeta will be of the survivors.

I change the subject. "I'm here to drink." I grab the neck of the bottle and throw it back. The liquid burns my throat, my tongue ignites. My eyes begin to water, not of pain or sadness, but the fact that Haymitch probably enjoys the pain. The liquor feels like fire. "How do you do that?" I ask with astonishment.

"I didn't think you could stomach it." He rubs his hands up and down the bottle.

We sit for a few minutes, he eyeing his liquor cabinet behind me. "What does it mean that Peeta was here 40 minutes ago begging to save your life and you only now show up?" He questions. It's true. I ran to the woods at the moment of the announcement.

"We have to save him, Haymitch. He can't go into the arena again. I just can't bear to-"

He interrupts. "You could live a hundred lifetimes and still not deserve that boy."

"Yeah. I know." I say, my mind wandering to the idea of a shortened lifetime. It's not the first. I have thought of this prospect, and I am not the only one; with the games taking 23 children each year. But Peeta is too good. Too good. He is strong in a way no one else is. He can cover a wound with a bandage of prose, a temporary relief to the burning uprising. Smoothing over a revolution with his words. He just can't die. "Yeah." I repeat, more for myself.

I collapse in the rocking chair, and push myself back and forth. "Want more?" He says tipping the bottle toward me.

"No." I have to face my problems with complete attention.

No matter what state I am in, my problems are going to swallow me whole. I'm being dragged into a pit of death and I can't handle it. I begin to cry once again, feeling helpless, and Haymitch rests the bottle on my kneecap in a form of endearment. He nods his head, his eyes focusing somewhere else.

"You saved me in the last games, it his turn to get your help. That's fair." I argue.

"We both know that he isn't going to allow that. But I'll try."

I feel childish, like I am forcing someone to swear to their secrecy. "Do you promise?"

"These games are going to be different, Katniss."

"I don't care. Peeta lives." I explain.

I can't swallow, my throat is so thick. My hands are trembling, and I know I need to find Peeta. To apologize? To be comforted? No. Because it's the right thing to do. But my exhaustion bolts me to my chair and I just push back and forth, the tears wracking my body.

"I'm going to find Peeta." I assert. I step on the wood floor and it creeks below my chair. Haymitch purses his lips and nods.

I swivel on my feet and see him. There he is footsteps away. He's lying face down on one of the throw pillow on Haymitch's couch. His shirt hangs loosely on his back, his finger interlaced with each other behind him. The prosthetic that the Capitol fitted to him rests against the couch, half underneath the piece of furniture.

After my dispute with Effie when we first boarded the train and him asking to start being friends, it felt so much more natural to be with him. I feel sick thinking that it reminds me of Gale, but really it does. Gale and I ran into each other in the woods. There was nothing saying we needed to be partners while we hunted- it just happened. Same with Peeta. We admitted that we both were scheming something on the other and swore to be honest to the other.

He showed that I am not that bad at having a conversation when he does most of the talking. Nothing felt forced. He comforted me after what happened in District 11, which triggered a wave of nightmares. I welcomed him in my bed and he held me close, as if he let go of me, I would just crumble to dust in his arms.

Friends do that, right?

Beside Gale, and maybe Madge, he became my closest friend.

Coming back home to District 12 after the victory tour, something changed between us compared to exiting the train that brought us back the first time. Then, our synthetic love sizzled. We avoided each other except for the times when he knocked on my door saying a camera crew had stopped by and wanted some footage of us together.

Now, after the tour, we still have to play the unfortunate-lovers-façade to the Capitol and to the districts. But to our families and the rest of 12, we are just in the same way broken teenagers in mutual understanding.

He comes over regularly. I don't go to his house because of his mother. The first time, his mother was rummaging through the cupboards and threw a bag of rice at me when she saw me open the door. She told me I had ruined her son's status, and that she never wanted me in her home.

I reminded her that this was Peeta's home. Was she stealing from his kitchen? I don't push at the idea, so instead I walked to their bakery where his dad told me that Peeta had just left to cook dinner for the baker's mother. I asked for the address and walked there to find Peeta making bread in his grandmother's kitchen and had a pot of potato and grain soup on the stove.

I introduced myself to his grandmother. We sat for dinner, and she had no problem inviting a seam girl into her home. I listened to her stories, of her late husband, and watching her grandchildren grow up. She read me off a poem that Peeta had written her when he was seven.

_Thank you Grandma, for loving me_

_And kissing the scratches on my knees._

_You understand when I explain my school day_

_And it was everything about those eyes that are gray._

_Grandma, please don't hate me for having a crush on a girl_

_She's from the seam and has tan skin and brown hair, and at the end it curls._

_She is different, I know,_

_And so are you._

_That is just why I love you._

I knew it was about me, and Peeta completely blushed as he sat across from me at the table, holding the paper he wrote on. His Grandma Sue confirmed that night that he wasn't bluffing during our time in the games; he really did like me from the start.

And even though we ended up walking from her house back to mine, instead of his, it was okay.

We came to the agreement that we would only do things at my house, or rarely, walk the district hand in hand or sometimes have dinner with his grandmother. And when he held my hand even after we knew there was no one watching, it gave me the reassurance I needed.

He taught me how to play and enjoy life as a regular teenager. There is a game with carved wooded horses and a king and queen that we would move over a checkered board. We'd laugh over memories at school, remembering different events from a merchant's point of view and then my standpoint as a Seam girl.

Once, we made a batch of cookies for Prim, making a mess in my kitchen.

But he never forced any kisses on me, even when we would sit in my bed working on the plant book. He never explained his undying love. He never forced himself into my bed after the tour.

But now, that's exactly what I am doing. I start to stroke the back of his head. He's sweaty and smells like Rory after the first time I took him to the woods. Like a boy. And the thought hits again like a gust in a wind storm, the thought that the progress we have made will just be a shout never heard- useless.

I rub his shoulder to coax him to let me see his face. He turns his neck and I see his eyes are closed; his lids look like they are covered in the glossy squirrel fat that Gale and I sell to the apothecary. His whole face is moist and red, and I get this impulse to kiss each patch of his puffy skin- under his eyelids, the side of his mouth and his cheeks.

Haymitch waves his hands at me to get my attention and I walk over quickly. "He's only miserable because he knows you have to go in." He confirms.

Maybe it's the big gulp of alcohol that makes me feel inclined to push Peeta to the side of the couch and lay down next to him. I hold him close, encasing him in both my arms. Our faces are so close, I wonder if in any different situation if he would kiss me. But he just rests his forehead against mine, and I squeeze him tighter. He just lies on his side, rigid as a board. Is he in shock? Should I get my mother?

"Peeta," I mumble. He frowns as a single tear falls down his cheek. He adjusts his arms around me and pushes his face in my windblown hair.

"We're going to die." He explains flatly.

That's when I lose it. I have never seen Peeta this hopeless. Not when I suggested the fake marriage proposal. Not when we were entering the games. Not when I told him I was faking our love story on the train to 12.

I put both my hands to his face and pull him out of my hair. "No, we are not. There is always a way out." It feels so reversed. He is usually the one holding me after a nightmare, begging me to believe it isn't real. But now I'm telling him.

"There isn't a way out. One of us_ is_ going to die. Haymitch, me," he gulps, "or you."

"See it how you want, but we are fighting it." I urge.

"That's not going to happen."

"The Capitol can't just walk into this thinking it is okay to kill all the victors. Snow might not be fond of us, but the Capitol is. And to calm the Capitol, he has to keep them calm too." I say.

He bends his neck away from me, like he's wreathing in pain. I just imagine the nerves going up his neck as if he has just been administered poison. This is unbearable for him.

"What can I do for you then?" I ask frantically. "I can't singlehandedly change this." He stays silent for a minute, and I am almost convinced he fell asleep. It's like coddling a baby. Nothing I can say will make him feel better until he physically gets what he wants. "Haymitch can help too." I whisper, suddenly becoming aware that there are cameras in the victors' houses, picking up our voices.

He opens his eyes quickly. "Katniss, do you not get it?" As he becomes irrational, he starts to hold me tighter, rolling the air out of my lungs. "I want you. I want me. I want us. Alive. Breathing."

I do too. Maybe not how he is implying but it seems fair for us both to survive. We already went to the arena once, that's what is fair.

"Me too." I confirm. We hold each other for a few more minutes until we start to doze off. It's been so long since the victory tour, and I revel in this closeness.

Haymitch, our chaperone, starts to snore in his chair. Peeta smiles for the first time today, showing me a hint of his white teeth contrasting with the rouge color rim of his eyes. I laugh softly.

"I'm going to miss this." He says, suggesting how we are together. And I can't deny that I wouldn't. He makes me feel safe, warm, in a way I never thought I needed. Prim always needed the comfort. After my father died, I was always giving and never receiving. Peeta made me realize that I need to be cared for too.

He moves his head to my shoulder and starts to weep. What do I do? Do I pet him?

His head rests softly against my throat and I start to sob too. We both try to keep our cries quiet, to let Haymitch successfully delve himself into his inebriated kind of mourning. Peeta's desperate cries remind me of when I suggested the proposal. He was so disappointed; I could hear his cries from my room. Haymitch says he wants it to be real.

Now, I realize that consoling each other in this way is what married couples do.

Technically, we are engaged. I got the ring. My engagement ring. The band he gave me on Capitol television. He knelt on one knee and fit it to my finger. Caesar told me that he had spent a fair amount of time choosing which one. It was all an act, but I get this frantic urge to be wearing it. Peeta kept the band at his house, locked away in the safes provided in the bedroom closets. After we got back, he kept it, because it's extremely valuable, and he knew I wouldn't wear it.

Should I be doing this, giving false signals to him in his state of mourning?

I reach my hand up and stroke his hair down to his ears. "It's okay. It's okay." I console. "What can I do to help you?"

He lifts his head and looks me directly in my eyes. "Kiss me."

And why shouldn't I? A life with Gale is not going to happen. I hardly ever see him with his full schedule in the mines. Our Sunday hunting sessions have become awkward since the proposal. Since the footage of our victory tour. _Since the games. _Nothing I can say or do can hurt him. He can't see what we are doing, only Haymitch, if he were awake.

He takes my quiet confusion as a rejection, and starts to rest his head back on the pillow. I have been so unresponsive to him over the last six months since the games. Giving him this fondness and then letting him down.

Feeling something then concealing it because of my uneasiness to affection.

I really have to sell that I want to kiss him not because he asked. But because this is what I have wanted, even though I don't want to admit that I felt this way long ago.

Slowly, I spread my fingers across his cheeks, my thumbs rubbing against his cheekbones. I lean in and kiss underneath his eyes, with a feather touch of my mouth. He gasps. Then, I leave a trail from there to his mouth until I reach his lips.

It's full of salty tears and chapped lips. Of despair and false hopes. Expectation and finality. And I don't feel guilt toward Gale, or to the life that we will never hold. But instead to the life Peeta and I will never live, and not doing this sooner.

It feels impossibly amazing to be treated like this. I am falling apart and being put back together again. It's the first time we kiss without the pressure of tilting our heads correctly for the cameras, or smiling, or dousing the flames of a rebellion with our affection. It's an intrinsic thrill; we are rebelling against the rebellion.

He pulls away for a second to catch his breath and I can see a curious expression cross his face. He positions his hands to my waist.

Then we are kissing again and pushing hard and passionately against each other and sighing softly, determined to remember this moment. It's a carnal starvation, and to my mind, he is the only sustenance available. I tug at his bottom lip with an open mouth. We're desperate.

He lets go and begins to pepper kisses down my neck, slowly.

"Peeta?" I hesitate, my voice breathy.

"Katniss," he says with his mouth flush with my neck.

"I'm going to miss this." I admit.

His smile doesn't reach his eyes. "Well here's the good thing. I'm thinking that the reaping will be at the beginning of June, as always. That gives us about five months, so…" He drags his tongue over his lips, "150 days." He gulps. "That's not terrible. We have some time to be happy. If that's okay with you."

Am I happy? I think so. I nod.

"Good."

He begins to stroke my hair and squeeze me softly. "Haymitch is watching us. He's," Peeta squints his eyes in Haymitch's direction. "He's smiling." His voice vibrates my neck.

"It's just the alcohol." I explain.

"Say what you want." A shudder runs down my body at the revelation that we actually look happy to him. Haymitch has been rooting for us since the beginning. The dinner before the first games where he told me that Peeta wanted to train alone made me hate my district partner. But as our mentor, and a fellow man, had the decency to make that decision to protect me.

Haymitch knew of Peeta's affections before me. And even though he knew I had better odds of leaving that arena, he gave Peeta the chance to express himself to me. The amount of affection he could show to me. We left the arena because of his undying love, I just tagged along. But now, I am having a difficult time deciphering how much of it really is fake.

I shiver.

I'm getting a lump in my throat like I am about to cry once again.

"I'm cold." I mumble. My arm rests over Peeta's back and his right cheek is against the pillow. He rubs my back lazily with his available arm.

Haymitch starts to stir in his chair and a few minutes later he returns to place a blanket made of a furred animal over us both. "Don't tell your mothers I am condoning this in my house." He looks to Peeta with a stern eye, "Whatever you do to her, I will do to you."

"Haymitch, don't worry." I say, with a blush covering my face, along with the blanket.

"That's my job, sweetheart." I smile, even though he can't see it.

"Thanks for the blanket Haymitch. See you in the morning."

"Night kids." He dismisses himself and trips over his feet on his way up the stairs.

Peeta plants a kiss on my cheek. We fall asleep like that, and wake up tangled together with the initiative of training for the games as warriors, and enjoying every moment until the upcoming date of our deaths.

* * *

Hope you enjoyed this, I wrote it fairly quickly. Leave me a review of what you thought, I would really appreciate it. Thanks for reading.


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